by Cookie n Screen

When I was a fourteen year old, I was that special kind of obnoxious teenager. There were a few things that I just wouldn't waver on in that petulant rage that you only find on 4Chan. Stuff like how Fall Out Boy were the worst, or pop music was terrible and you should only listen to metal and how the ending of Hannibal was all kinds of messed up. (Side note: being this obnoxious about things is silly and being open to differences and perspectives. Heck I know 35 year olds who need to hear that).  So now, at a tender age of 25, it's all changed and I am preparing for two Fall Out Boy shows this year, I've got my own dance routine to Shake it Off and I'm obsessed with the intricate ending of Thomas Harris' Hannibal. 

Let's flag up a spoiler warning. I must stress that this article will talk heavily about the conclusion to the original book canon by Harris. Regardless of how NBC are taking the series or how that pretty poor Ridley adaptation went, (or how enraged a fourteen year old can get) this is the finale that stands truer and better than the others.

by Cookie N Screen

It’s World Book Day and the table's been set. The dinner has been cooking, not an ounce I forget. I smooth all the creases of my periwinkle dress, making sure that my hair hasn’t exploded with stress. My make-up is flawless but on my teeth is a smear. Best clean of that lipstick before all of my guests get here. I light all the candles and relight the mood. There’s aromas of meat, cake and all of the food. I’ve slaved over the meal, now I simply have to wait. Soon they’ll be arriving and the night will be great.

There’s a ring of the doorbell, a knot in my tum. Whose here at my home? It must be someone.

by Cookie N Screen 

Sitting back and enjoying the whirlwind of turkey and roast potatoes that now swirled in my stomach, a glass of wine clenched by one hand, the family Christmas affair turned to the impending New Year. After all, 2015 is finally here and it is a special time for us to remember all the good things that happened in our lives. Whether it is starting a career, a family or growing up just a little bit more than the year before, 2014 still shaped and changed your lives. Inevitably, your mind will wonder to the promise you made this time last year and how, inevitably again, a lot of those promises failed.  Yet still, we make new ones and spend at least one week trying it on for size.

And as “continuing to be the awesome person I already am” wasn’t, apparently, an acceptable New Year’s Resolution, my new goal is to further my writing career. 

by Cookie N Screen

I always lovely darkly morbid books. I really have. I was recounting my favourite book list for a project and each one that I have read has a similar vein – there are either gothic horror romps with bloody bits in their full form (The Gargoyle, Frankenstein), thrillers following unrelenting murders and intellectual trilobites between cop and villain (Silence of the Lambs) or have a sarcastic narrator at the helm of it (Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging). Most importantly, the hero at the core of it is probably not the most charming or angelic – enthused with visceral and destructive paths (Filth). So when Horns came into my possession, I have to admit, I was in glee that it seemingly combined all the pleasures I have when reading.

by Cookie N Screen

Why be a writer? Why do we do it to ourselves?

After all, I’ve been flailing around in this career for a year and a half, just scraping by with some help of my family in exchange for independence and dignity. Searching for odd jobs to pay my way, trying to carve a career in something that I seemingly love, is a difficult won – especially when you work on so many websites daily for many hours and for free. Because at this crucial stage in my career, getting my name out there and polishing that name so it shines means it will eventually become gold. It’s a lot of work to see your ideas in print, or become a film. It’s a lot of work

by Cookie N Screen 

Dr. King Schultz: Actually, I was thinking of that poor devil you fed to the dogs today, D'Artagnan. And I was wondering what Dumas would make of all this.

Calvin Candie: Come again?

Dr. King Schultz: Alexander Dumas. He wrote "The Three Musketeers." I figured you must be an admirer. You named your slave after his novel's lead character. If Alexander Dumas had been there today, I wonder what he would have made of it?

Calvin Candie: You doubt he'd approve?

Dr. King Schultz: Yes. His approval would be a dubious proposition at best.

Calvin Candie: Soft hearted Frenchy?

Dr. King Schultz: Alexander Dumas was black.

This is an exchange from last year’s phenomenal Quentin Tarantino’s Western Django Unchained, which shocked a mostly ignorant audience watching, myself included and the fact had caused a trickle of confusion to kneed my brow. The author of one of the most famous French romps of literature history was, indeed, black. Descended from slavery, Alexandre Dumas was a literary icon who strived in his excellence and become a name on the wagging tongues of aristocracy, in a time where his skin colour and race where made mockery and treated inhumanely. Yet he has provided us with a book so undeniably good and rousing that it’s legacy still lives on.

by Cookie N Screen

This year, we lost a true poet. No, wait, we lost a true humanitarian. No, wait, we lost the ultimate modern culture icon who helped pave the way for rights as well as a wagging her tongue round evocative verses that portrayed the pain of her past with the mind of the present and the hope of the future. The death of Maya Angelou ricocheted across the globes and the nations she had brought together with her astute, vibrant and beautiful written work. As a voice for her generation, as well as an active role in revolution, Angelou graced this world with her intellect and talent. Let's be sycophantic, and rightly so, Angelou was indeed her namesake and then some; a goddess to grace this Earth. 

 by Cookie N Screen

Here is a brand new novel coming to a novel near you. She’s a young girl living in a regime that is failing the people. Even though there is literally death, poverty and starvation, no one seems to care much. When a change that jeopardises the lives of her and/or her family, she must lead a rebellion against the very system that put her there. Luckily, she has the help of two boys who are madly in love with her.

Wait, wait, wait, let’s stop right there because while the above statement is true and yes, a slew of young adult rompy fiction has plagued not only our novels but our cinemas, Katniss Everdeen is so much better. And here is why; 

by Cookie N Screen

I love getting new books thrust into my hand. Mainly because placing me in a book store is like placing me in a DVD store; my fingers will grab as much as I possibly can. Then my wallet will loudly sigh at me, I’ll hang my head and place them all back. Plus, which one am I really going to enjoy more? Which one should I dedicate my life too? How can I decide, ever? So it’s useful when someone just places the book in my hand and goes, “you really need to read this” as it cuts out a lot of the decisions that I am useless to make. Anyway, that is exactly how I came to read Bad Monkeys. 

by Cookie N Screen

Imagine you are a University student who has just hurled her way from the North to the South of England. Okay, so that isn't exactly the most dramatic part of England but it gets worse. Imagine, because she was a bit of an idiot, that she didn't have a television and couldn't figure out how to connect to her halls internet. That’s right, that idiot, was me. So on those lonely nights where pennies were scarce, I would find solace in the library and their DVD selection… 

…Okay, so a lot of you will be screaming at me “a library is for books.” Trust me, I’ll get there; what can I say? Idiot. 

After I had watched all I could watched and read all the film theories I could read, I took those dead tree things with words on them. Books. And that’s when I stumbled upon Haruki Murakami and his tantalising piece Dance, Dance, Dance; a book I didn't have to study and rejuvenated my love for fiction.